Tagged 'user experience'

Creating User Profiles is something I learned during my 6 years at Razorfish, but how to do this in an effective and engaging way is something that I have learned over the last 10 years at The Groop.
It takes energy and good moderation skills. You have to encourage and reward your team in the process and you have to make it fun.
In this episode of my weekly show This Week in Web Design we continue doing a "LIVE Redesign" of the This Week in Network and allow our audience to watch us work live.
I encourage ad agencies that are not familiar with the user experience process to watch. It is a great exercise that can be used for websites and for campaigns.
Enjoy.

This photograph was sent to me by Patrick Donnelly of QRArts, and illustrates the point that user experience should and must be on top of mind when developing and implementing a 2D barcode-based advertisement or campaign.
Let me set the scene. The billboard is located on the second floor of a suburban shopping mall and faces a floor-through opening. If you enlarge the image and look close enough, in the upper right hand corner of the yellow section, you'll find a QR Code. Why or how the company that placed this ad believes that they are going to get a significant number of scans, if any, is beyond me. Have they ever heard of the user experience or thought about media placement in relation to the created ad or vice versa?

Regardless of how great the scan resolve may or may not be, in reality, it's virtually meaningless, because not enough thought was given to one simple, but very important, element of the campaign...the user experience.

The other day, I went to a local pizzeria to grab a quick lunch of a regular slice and a Coke. When I sat down with the pizza and started to eat, I realized it was very hot so, as I sometimes do, I asked for a fork and knife. The person behind the counter gave me a set of plastic utensils, which is what I expected, but when I started to make use of the plastic knife it was like trying to cut with a butter knife. Back and forth, back and forth--as if I was sawing wood--the knife simply would not cut. So, in frustration, I resumed eating the pizza by hand. The plastic knife given to me must have been the least expensive plastic knife the pizzeria could have purchased and why? Just to save some money, I suspect. But, in my mind, I viewed the inexpensive plastic knife as something that caused me to have a less-than-ideal dining experience. Even though I enjoyed the pizzeria's food, I will now think twice about going back, because I know if I ever need to use utensils again I'll be stuck with the lousy plastic knife that won't cut.
Why... Read more

Have you ever seen one of those movie renditions of a Charles Dickens story? Somehow, there's always a scene in there with some downtrodden clerk at a bank, toiling away at vast ledgers in the semidarkness, armed only with a quill pen, adding and subtracting endless columns of figures. A great Empire and an entire Industrial Age took its decision support from such mountains of dusty quill-scratchings.
Fast forward a hundred years. Now the office has better lighting, and those vast ledgers have been replaced by vast stacks of computer printouts. And business leaders could now make their decisions in a matter of hours, simply by scouring reams of spreadsheets.
Today, our quest for knowledge and for speed has brought us to the dashboard, where the very essence of the facts we need is presented in an easy-to-access and easy-to-understand format. Just the information we need, at a glance.
My manifesto for 2010 is simple – evolve these things we call 'dashboards'. Why? Because the time is right for this revolution/evolution. A recent Gartner prediction/study said that one third of dashboards will be "mashups" with heavy analytics overlaid into the graphical user interface (GUI).
This is awesome news, as the more information that... Read more

According to Wookieepedi, Force-sensitive beings are able to tap into the Force to perform acts of great skill and agility as well as to control and shape the world around them. They seek to understand the Force so they can use its power to protect and aid the people they serve. Here are three ways UXDs are surprisingly like Jedi:
1. They are bound to the ForceLike Jedi, UXDs use their powers to gain greater knowledge in order to get inside the mind of the user. They find a balance between the needs of the user and your business objectives. And when they are true to the Force, they are able to motivate and persuade the user to take the actions you want — be it opting into your email program, making a purchase, providing feedback, etc.
2. They harness the ForceUXDs come armed to projects, ready to defend the user and promote their needs. And they usually do so with sharpies and scrap paper in hand. Starting with paper prototyping, UXDs create quick user-interface sketches that let the team evaluate usability early on with little expense.
Wireframe and prototyping software also play a big part in your UXD's process. Usually created... Read more